Part 14

Again a girl began to ask from behind the door: "Titorelli, isn't he going to leave soon?" "Be quiet," the painter called toward the door, "can't you see I'm having a discussion with the gentleman?" But the girl was not satisfied with this and asked: "Are you going to paint him?" And when the painter did not answer, she added: "Please don't paint him, such an ugly person." A confused medley of incomprehensible approving cries followed. The painter made a leap to the door, opened it to a crack—one could see the pleading outstretched folded hands of the girls—and said: "If you don't keep quiet, I'll throw you all down the stairs. Sit here on the steps and behave quietly." Probably they did not obey at once, so that he had to command: "Down on the steps!" Only then did it grow silent.

"Forgive me," said the painter when he returned to K. K. had scarcely turned toward the door; he had left it entirely to the painter whether and how he wanted to defend him. He made scarcely any movement even now, when the painter bent down to him and whispered into his ear, so as not to be heard outside: "These girls too belong to the Court." "What?" asked K., drew his head to the side, and looked at the painter. But the latter sat down again on his chair and said, half in jest, half by way of explanation: "Why, everything belongs to the Court." "I hadn't noticed that," said K. briefly; the painter's general remark took all that was disturbing out of the reference to the girls. Nevertheless K. looked toward the door for a while, behind which the girls now sat silently on the steps. Only one had stretched a straw through a chink between the planks and moved it slowly up and down.

"You don't seem to have an overview of the Court yet," said the painter; he had stretched his legs far apart and was slapping the floor with his toes. "But since you are innocent, you won't need one. I alone will get you out," "How do you intend to do that?" asked K., "since you yourself said not long ago that the Court is completely inaccessible to grounds of evidence." "Inaccessible only to grounds of evidence that one presents before the Court," said the painter and raised his index finger, as if K. had failed to notice a fine distinction. "But it is different with what one attempts in this regard behind the public Court, that is, in the consultation rooms, in the corridors, or for example here in the studio." What the painter said now no longer seemed so unbelievable to K.; rather it showed a great agreement with what K. had also heard from other people. Indeed, it was even very hopeful. If the judge was really so easily influenced by personal connections, as the lawyer had represented, then the painter's relations with the vain judges were especially important and certainly not to be underestimated. Then the painter fitted very well into the circle of helpers that K. was gradually gathering around himself. He had once been praised in the bank for his organizational talent; here, where he was entirely on his own, a good opportunity presented itself to test it to the utmost. The painter observed the effect his explanation had made on K. and then said with a certain anxiousness: "Don't you notice that I speak almost like a jurist? It is the uninterrupted intercourse with the gentlemen of the Court that influences me so. I naturally gain much from it, but the artistic impulse is largely lost." "How did you first come into contact with the judges?" asked K.; he wanted first to win the painter's confidence before taking him directly into his service. "That was very simple," said the painter, "I inherited this connection. My father was already a court painter. It is a position that is always inherited. One cannot use new people for it. You see, for painting the various official ranks there are so many different, manifold, and above all secret rules established that they are not known outside certain families at all. In that drawer there, for example, I have my father's notes, which I show to no one. But only whoever knows them is qualified to paint judges. However, even if I were to lose them, I would still retain so many rules that I carry alone in my head that no one could dispute my position. Every judge wants to be painted as the old great judges were painted, and that only I can do." "That is enviable," said K., thinking of his position at the bank. "Your position is therefore unshakable?" "Yes, unshakable," said the painter and proudly raised his shoulders. "That is why I can also dare now and then to help a poor man who has a trial." "And how do you do that?" asked K., as if it were not he whom the man had just called a poor man. But the painter would not be diverted and said: "In your case, for example, since you are completely innocent, I will undertake the following." The repeated mention of his innocence was already becoming tiresome to K. It sometimes seemed to him as if the painter, through such remarks, made a favorable outcome of the trial the precondition of his help, which thereby naturally collapsed within itself. Despite these doubts K. restrained himself and did not interrupt the painter. He was determined not to renounce the painter's help; moreover, this help seemed to him by no means more questionable than that of the lawyer. He even preferred it far to the latter, because it was offered more innocently and openly.

The painter had drawn his chair closer to the bed and continued in a muffled voice: "I forgot to ask you first which kind of release you desire. There are three possibilities, namely actual acquittal, apparent acquittal, and prolongation. Actual acquittal is naturally the best, only I have not the slightest influence on this kind of solution. In my opinion there is not a single person who could influence actual acquittal. Here probably only the innocence of the accused decides. Since you are innocent, it would really be possible that you rely solely on your innocence. But then you need neither me nor any other help."}

“Stories of the world, in your language.”